Little Bit Brad Pitt

Have you watched multiple Brad Pitt movies? Have you noticed yet that he has the obsessive need to have something in his mouth at all times? Whether he’s eating in a scene, chewing gum or whatever it is that men chew (is it called chew? Is that a thing? I could google it but I’m lazy), or sucking on a spoon, his mouth is always in use.

I get it, Brad Pitt. I do. It’s called an oral fixation, and you are not alone.

But for those of you that think oral fixations are all memes and blowjob jokes, it’s more than that. Let’s start with the facts.

The oral stage is a Freud thing. Do you remember Freud? He’s the guy that thought your personality was developed through psychosexual stages.  An oral fixation occurred when one was weaned too early or late, and could lead to issues with eating, drinking, smoking, or nail biting. Now that’s an awkward conversation to have with your mom (Happy early Mother’s Day, thanks for weaning me early because you popped out another kid right away, amiright??!).   

Unless you’re trying to get free drinks at a bar, you probably don’t want to admit to an oral fixation. You can’t move forward until you recognize a problem though, so let’s talk again about my on-again, off-again relationship with Diet Pepsi.

Some of you may have wondered why I have such a hard time giving up Diet Pepsi. Why I can’t just switch to coffee or some less toxic form of caffeine, and move on with my life. Well, I’ve decided it comes down to three things:

1.     Similar caffeine amounts

2.     Ease of access

3.     Hydration issues/Oral fixation

I actually tried recently drinking coffee instead of Diet Pepsi in the afternoon. What I very quickly discovered is that there is a HUGE difference in caffeine between them. I thought I was pretty baller when it came to caffeine because I drink a ridiculous amount of pop and it doesn’t affect me. I ordered an Americano at Starbucks because I didn’t know what it was but saw that it didn’t have a lot of calories. I wasn’t bouncing off the walls per se, but I was literally bouncing everywhere I walked and talking like a crazy person for the rest of the afternoon.

So when it comes to caffeine, I find tea or iced tea a better substitute, until you start talking about ease of access. We don’t have iced tea that I like at work. We don’t even have regular tea that I like at work. So if I want tea of some sort, I either need to bring it or go run and get some every day. I don’t always have that kind of extra time in the workday to make a caffeine run.

But the real deal breaker is my hydration issue, which stems from my oral fixation. See, drinking is how I keep my mouth occupied. You can’t snack all day without gaining weight and I’m not a huge gum fan because I don’t want to necessarily be chewing, so I drink something.

I drink more in a day than you. I am absolutely confident in this statement. Because not only am I drinking Diet Pepsi all day, I’m drinking water too. Oh, and I normally start my morning with shakeology for breakfast, so I’m also drinking that. And maybe a glass (or two) of wine in the evening.

Let me put this in numbers to make this more understandable. I recently read a Thrillist article about a man drinking a gallon of water every day as part of a challenge. I read it and laughed, because I was pretty sure I already drink a gallon of water a day.  So I tracked my intake for a few days, and guess what, I drink around 130 ounces of water EVERY SINGLE WEEKDAY without even trying. Weekends I do drink less, but I’ve only been out of bed about 3 hours and I’ve already had about 35 ounces of water and 20 ounces of Diet Pepsi, so there’s that.

The thing about drinking so much is that it’s a self-perpetuating cycle. You get thirsty far easier than your dehydrated friends. If I’m not given something to drink for a 2 hour period, I almost die. Forget hangry, thrangry is the real struggle. You’re also hitting the bathroom constantly.  I’m always convinced that people think I have a bladder problem. I don’t, I swear. If you drank the same amount of liquid you’d be in and out of the bathroom all day too.

That’s why I like Diet Pepsi. It doesn’t go through me as quickly as water, so if I have a long meeting I can focus on drinking Diet Pepsi and don’t need to run out to the bathroom halfway through. That doesn’t work with coffee because the cup quickly runs out, and then I’m drinking water. When I don’t drink Diet Pepsi, I find myself drinking EVEN MORE WATER THAN USUAL. Surely there’s a point at which you get overhydrated (I’m purposely not googling this one because I don’t want to make myself paranoid)? 

So I feel you, Brad Pitt. People may laugh at your oral fixation, but I get it. If you read this and want to have our own private support group, I’m totally in.

A Lament for the Mocha Cookie Crumble

There are three key things to note before reading this post that will help it make more sense:

1.     I love chocolate

2.     I’m a Taurus and thus resistant to change

3.     I have mad issues about my birthday

Back in 2012 Starbucks revealed one of their new seasonal drinks: the Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino. At the end of the summer the drink was discontinued, to the dismay of many. Chocolate lovers rejoiced when it came back the next year just in time for Frappuccino happy hour!! When the same rigmarole happened for the third time in 2014 I made the silly mistake of assuming that the Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino would always return in early May.

But this year, Starbucks decided to ruin my world and debut a new Frappuccino instead.

To be fair, I haven’t yet tried the new S’mores Frappuccino. Friends have sung its praises but I’ve been slow to convert. I like S’mores, so in theory it should be good, but I suspect it will never replace the Mocha Cookie Crumble in my heart.

Before you write me off as simply being stubborn, let’s talk about the role the Mocha Cookie Crumble has played in my life. This all goes back to my thing about my birthday.

I do not like my birthday. Deep inside of me is a Lily Aldrin wanting to make it a grand holiday to be recognized and respected by all my friends, but the years have convinced me that instead I’m more Penny of Happy Endings, and that my birthday is cursed. I tried celebrating with small groups of friends, I tried vacations, I tried escaping all people I know… it doesn’t really matter what I do. The birthday curse will find a way to ruin the day.

When the Mocha Cookie Crumble appeared in 2012, I had recently moved to a new city and had no one in the area that actually knew it was my birthday. On the eve of, I drank a lot at a book club happy hour, and then woke up feeling not exactly wonderful early in the morning to fly to Houston for work. Work that day involved my least favorite meeting possible. My flight back got delayed because of thunderstorms, so I ended up coming home very late, very tired, and overall done with the day.

But in general I believe in finding the bright side of life, and that day, it was the Mocha Cookie Crumble. I got one the minute I left the airport in Houston, and you know what? It was amazing. It was chocolatey and delicious, and it helped me make it through an otherwise awful meeting.

That was 2012. In 2013, I decided ahead of time to take work off on my birthday so I wasn’t facing the same situation. My birthday that year was a Friday, and it just so happened I was spending that week in the middle of nowhere New Mexico for work. That was possibly one of the worst work trips of my life. I flew in Monday night, got in late since my flight was delayed, again, then drove 2-3 hours to get to where I needed to be. I was feeling worse and worse during the drive, so as soon as I got to my (not very nice) hotel, I went to sleep. I woke up a few hours later and spent the rest of the night horribly ill.

I sucked it up the next day and went to my onsite, feeling weak and dizzy. This was the first of three days of a cranky, obnoxious group of people that complained that I was too pale (I was sick, also I don’t understand why that’s relevant) and my voice sounded bad (again, sick, but this is a large part of why I now have a complex about my voice) and that also blamed me for the fact that the room we were in had no A/C (seriously, how the f*ck was that my fault?!).

Thursday night I drove back to the airport but it was too late for a flight, so I was spending my birthday, my day off, waking up ungodly early to fly back home. All week though, I looked forward to that flight, because I had a layover in Dallas and while there, I got my first Mocha Cookie Crumble of the year and it was AMAZING, as always. The end of the day ended up much better than I expected.

Even last year, despite suffering through the worst of my knee problems at that point and putting up with idiots who think the best way to celebrate your birthday is to be the designated driver (yes guys, I’m still bitter), I had not one but several Mocha Cookie Crumbles that week, and they kept me sane and happy, and also helped me resist the Diet Pepsi temptation a bit longer.

It wasn’t just birthdays either. Every time I had to drive back and forth to Houston for work stuff that killed my spirit, I made sure to at least plan out where exactly on the drive I was getting my Mocha Cookie Crumble. It got me through the random weeks when I wasn’t sleeping. It made the times where I was working two roles with not enough hours in the day bearable.

So when I started stressing out about my birthday and other things even earlier than usual this year, I kept consoling myself that at least the Mocha Cookie Crumble was coming soon. I asked several Starbucks employees when it was officially coming. No one would answer. Well, this week I figured out why when I stopped at Starbucks for iced tea, saw a sign announcing Frappuccino happy hour to start on Friday, and saw NO MENTION of the Mocha Cookie Crumble. Quick internet research proved that the S’mores had replaced it for the year.

I suppose it’s stupid to care so much about something like a particular coffee drink. Sometimes though I need to care about something stupid, so I can downplay the real problems of the moment. I’m not going to lie – after learning there was no Mocha Cookie Crumble this year I spent all week indulging myself with as much Diet Pepsi as I wanted.

But maybe, just maybe, the S’mores Frappuccino is even better. Maybe I’ll try it and it’ll be angels in my mouth. And maybe it won’t, but it won’t matter because something else random will come along and lift my spirits. I like to believe in the possibilities.   

The Cult of Jazzercise

It’s been especially frustrating for me the past 2 months that I haven’t been able to jazzercise as much as I want. It’s probably not helping my stress levels. I’m going to be lucky to hit 10 classes for August. Freaking ridiculous.

At this point of life, I like to joke to my friends that I only talk about 2 things: The Vampire Diaries and jazzercise. You’ve probably already noticed The Vampire Diaries obsession. I’ve mentioned jazzercise a few times before… here, and there, and everywhere. But finally, it’s time to explain the obsession.

You see the thing is I totally drank the Kool-Aid. I bought into jazzercise, and now I continuously try to recruit others. I’ve made my mom go jazzercise when she visits me. I almost had my friend Baby Kevin talked into trying it, but then we were busy/hungover during the class time.

This is utterly shocking because I DO NOT like exercise. Seriously. Not at all. I remember back in the day in high school there was some sort of test we took where it would determine your best love matches in the school (which by the way I also remember that mine sucked). One of the questions was “how often do you exercise?” I tried to say 1-2 times a week because otherwise I felt lazy, and every reprimanded me because that was a huge lie.  It would be more realistic to say that for 1 or 2 weeks out of a year I was really good and worked out maybe 3 times a week, but the rest of the year I did absolutely nothing.

I continued this behavior in college. Actually I may have been the least fit of my college roommates, because they would work out consistently for a few weeks, and I always tapped out at like week 2. I just see no point to exercising. You get all sweaty and disgusting, it doesn’t feel good, and it’s boring.

Now I had a year after college where I did slightly better. What happened is that I decided to go on a cruise with a bunch of friends, and I figured I should look half decent in a swimsuit. I was successful because I didn’t go to the gym, instead I danced or jogged around the house, and because I tied exercising to my pepsi intake. I made some rule where if I didn’t exercise every other day I wasn’t allowed to have my daily pepsi or something similar. Once we got back from the cruise and I gave up pepsi, that pretty much fell apart.

So how did I end up an absurd jazzercise enthusiast?

When I moved to Austin I decided to go to a jazzercise class because I thought it would be a good way to meet people. I was pleasantly surprised to realize jazzercise is FUN. As I continued to go, I discovered more benefits. Because it combines cardio and weight exercises, you can burn calories (if you believe in that sort of thing) and also sculpt your muscles.

There are 2 questions I always hear from people when I talk about jazzercise, which if I answer now will clear up some common misconceptions:

1. Is there actually jazz music?

Normally no. The routines are set to a variety of music, but think more top 10 than jazz. Right now some of the routines are to “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk, “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark” by Fall Out Boy, and “Treasure” by Bruno Mars.

2. Do you do jazz hands?

Sometimes, yes. There are songs where they tell us to do jazz hands. But not as often as you might think.

Basically how jazzercise works is that the first 30ish minutes are cardio. There are set routines to different songs. The instructor can choose the songs, and there are some things they do slightly differently in a routine, but otherwise it’s the same.

Once the cardio portion is over, we move on to the strength training. These are a few songs, typically involving weights, a tube, a mat, or an exercise ball, that hit certain muscle groups. Normally there are 2 leg songs, 1 for arms, 1 for abs, and then an ending song. This is the area that gets switched up the most. There are songs that combine muscles (like both legs and abs or arms and legs). Some instructors do more arms and less legs. As we approached summer one of my favorite instructors made us always do 2 abs songs. So this is where you normally get more variety.

It’s hard to explain what makes jazzercise different. You have to try it. Everyone is so welcoming. I tend to hit different jazzercise locations when I travel, and it’s always a really great experience. When people think I’m “new” they are so sweet and make sure I know where everything is and how it works.

There’s no judging in jazzercise. When you mess up (and everyone does at some point) you laugh it off. The instructors always say as long as you’re moving you’re fine.

Plus the instructors are amazing. Now I have my favorites, and by no means is anyone perfect. I’m always mentally comparing styles in my head (I feel like I want to make a scorecard of jazzercise instructors someday). But they keep it fun, and they are so encouraging. They take the time normally to greet new people and they’re always available to answer any questions.

And the thing is now that I jazzercise regularly, I do feel a difference. I feel stronger. I feel healthy. I feel empowered. And I feel like I need my jazzercise “me time” so I don’t get angry at the stupid people of the world.  

Dead Oxen & Potential Interventions

Almost a year ago now I talked about my diet pepsi addiction using The Oregon Trail to illustrate my issues. For today’s purposes let’s continue this metaphor.

I have an announcement. I tried to ford the river and my oxen all died.

What does that mean in pepsiholicism?

Rivers are those moments of temptation. You either cross successfully (and don’t give in and drink pepsi), or you flail around a lot and drown (but not literally, it’s not like you’re choking to death on pepsi, just you are in fact drinking it again). Sometimes a passenger in the wagon dies (you take a sip) but you still make it across (you don’t get back in the pepsi habit). When all the oxen die, that generally means the wagon is going down too. So are all the passengers (people traveling to Oregon don’t know how to swim, btw). You lost the game, and you need to start back over in Independence.

So basically what I’m saying here, as my friend Kevin puts it, is that I need to turn in my chip.

Not that I had a chip, which is a shame all in itself. Should I successfully get off pepsi again I want chips, or badges, or something. Somebody get on that.  

I’m not overly upset at myself. Every so often you come up to a river that you can’t ford. Sometimes you really should have just sucked it up and taken the ferry. Not that I have any idea what the ferry would be in this metaphor. I’m just saying.

For those that don’t know already, my cat died last month. That was my river. I came home and found a dead cat, and I’ll be the first to say I did not react in the best manner. In the course of events I ended up over at my friend’s house, where there just happened to be a 2 liter of pepsi in the fridge. I had a few glasses there to calm down (I entered the river), I took the 2 liter home with me (the oxen floundered), and once it was gone since I still wasn’t particularly happy about the situation I went ahead and bought myself more (oxen died, supplies were lost, passengers drowned).

I had plenty of opportunities to not fall off the pepsi wagon. I could have had a few glasses but left the bottle there. I could have finished the bottle but not bought more. I could have bought more for that week but then stopped once it was gone. Or, I COULD HAVE MADE IT SO THE 2 LITER WAS NEVER AT MY FRIEND’S HOUSE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

If anything about my relapse annoys me, it’s that. The presence of the 2 liter was entirely my fault in the first place. What happened is that the weekend right before everything went down a few friends gathered at Pietro’s to socialize and play games. We ran out for supplies. We had rum since we needed it for mojitos, we had beer because you always need beer, and we ended up getting some pop for one of the girls that didn’t particularly like mojitos or beer. We figured she could have rum & coke. As she grabbed the bottle of coke, I protested, because after all pepsi is so much better.

Did I drink any of it that night? No! I had no intention of drinking it. But such is my insanity that even though I wasn’t going to be drinking the beverage, I wanted it to be my beloved pepsi instead of coke.

And THAT’s why there was a 2 liter of pepsi in Pietro’s fridge. I believe this was the only time THIS ENTIRE YEAR there has been pepsi in that fridge, and it just so happened to be the same week I hit a river.

Le sigh.

Meanwhile I have not gone completely crazy about the pepsi thing (although that may depend on who you ask about it). I bought mini bottles of pepsi so I’m not drinking that much. I’m drinking regular pepsi instead of diet, because I can’t drink as much regular pepsi at one time without feeling sick. Every few days I try to have a day with no pepsi whatsoever (although I will admit I’m not in the best mood those days). I’m well aware I need to quit again, I’m just waiting until after our big work conference. Or maybe after my weird work transition thing ends in October. Or actually maybe it would best be a goal for the next year.

But do I really need to quit again? I mean who’s to say I do? Plenty of people all over the world drink pop. I know I’ve talked about being healthier this year and pepsi is not the healthiest thing in the world, but everything’s okay in moderation. One of my initial reasons for quitting was the effect on my teeth, but I’ve been brushing every time I finish drinking it. So why can’t I keep drinking it? Just because people think I’m “addicted.” Please.

I suspect I sound crazy again. My friend Jenn and I were discussing this yesterday and she told me I was crazy ranting. She also threatened an intervention. I said not yet. I can totally quit, just not yet.

Clearly a sign we should wait until next May

The good news is that Jenn is hundreds of miles away from me! Normally not good news, but in this case it means she can’t actually pepsintervention me (yes I made that all one word. Deal with it). Thank goodness. Because I think she was actually being serious about that idea, and I’m not ready to start back on the trail again.

Everything Is Better In Mini

I think I’ve mentioned before my issues with Target, mainly being that every time I walk in Target, I walk out with far more than I planned because of bright colors and clever advertising. This was put to the test this week. I walked into Target with 2 goals: return a few items, and buy peas for making beef stew. I specifically took the most direct route to both areas of the store so I wouldn’t lose focus, and yet I still almost ended up with an additional purchase.

Why? Because right near the checkout counter they had mini water bottles. Mini water bottles! Well technically, they were for children, but what evs, the idea is that they were adorable smaller than the typical water bottle. I was immensely tempted to purchase them. The only reason I made it out of the store was due to a lot of deep breaths and mental pep talks. BECAUSE THEY WERE MINI! ZOMG how could I not want mini water bottles!?! Well, there’s the whole deal that I don’t actually want less water when I’m working out. If anything I want more.

Like my friend Erin, I too question whether I’m really a “grown up.” Mostly because of my obsession with mini objects. It gets me every time.

Actually I was quite distraught this week to realize I’m almost out of mini mountain dew bottles. They don’t actually call them “mini” bottles (I don’t think anyway, clearly I don’t pay that much attention) but they’re half the size of normal bottles of mountain dew and just delightful. I bought a bunch a few weeks ago and always have one or two in the fridge for my emergency caffeine days when tea just doesn’t cut it. I’m normally only allowed one a week maximum, as I don’t want mountain dew to become my new diet pepsi problem. But I realized this week that I only have one mini mountain dew left, and I haven’t seen the tiny bottles in stores again. I’m going to have to drink normal size drinks again. The horror!

A male friend tried to understand my love of mini objects once. It went kinda like this: he held up a straw and asked if he ripped it in half, if I would like the half straw better than the real straw. Well no, of course not. That’s not a “mini” straw, that’s a ripped straw. BUT, if he offered me one of those stupid red coffee stirrer straw things, that would count because they’re like mini straws and too cute. They function horribly as straws, but that’s not the point.

As far as weird habits go it’s not really a bad one. All it really affects is my consumerism choices and the functionality (or lack thereof) of my purchases. Well apparently some article says it also make me eat more, but I feel like that’s going to happen regardless. It just doesn’t seem like a very adult thing to me to still be gushing over mini items constantly.

OR, maybe it’s an important part of being a grown up.

Hear me out. What are babies but mini humans? Even Eric from True Blood realizes that. Maybe my love of mini objects is just nature’s way of pushing me to breed and take care of tiny humans until they’re no longer “mini” and no longer need me to care for them. This could totally be a real thing.

 It could.

But this is one thing I don’t think even I can believe in. I will not be adding it to the list of things I believe/do-not-believe-in-despite-lack-of-evidence-or-despite-contradictory-facts-against-it (yes, this list does exist, and it’s actually quite lengthy).

Could I convince somebody else to believe it? That’s possible. I’m actually really good at saying the most preposterous things with a straight face. I can’t lie about important things to save my life, but I can convince you without blinking that I used to live on a beet farm in Russia.

What I constantly wonder is why did I move to Texas when I love me some mini items. I didn’t realize how this would alter my life habits until I could no longer find mini tator tots in the store. All I want are my freaking mini tator tots. Why can’t I find them anywhere?? I find it beyond comprehension that they would be readily available in some states and not others. It’s a cruel state of the union issue.

(Not Quite) Falling Off the Wagon

The word “wagon” inevitably makes me thing of the Oregon Trail. This is mostly due to the game, Oregon Trail. Spectacular game. I used to play it for hours. It kept you on your toes, that’s for sure. One minute everything is fine and dandy, and the next your axle cracked, an oxen died, you’re almost out of food, and oh by the way Jim-Bob got dysentery. Fabulous.

So when I think of the phrase “falling off the wagon” my mental image is always a little cartoon person hanging on to the wagons from the Oregon Trail (and if you played the game, specifically it’s the image that came up while fording the river) as they slowly slip off. This week, that little cartoon person was me.

Now you’re probably wondering at this point what I could possibly be addicted to. I seem so normal, right? But as I have actually mentioned before I’m currently recovering from a serious diet pepsi addiction. And for whatever reason, this past week the universe decided to tempt me at every possible opportunity.

I know, I know, it’s diet pepsi. It’s not like I’m addicted to something super harmful. I am fully aware that there are far worse addictions out there. But are you fully aware how much I CRAVE just a sip of diet pepsi?

Since I gave up the stuff last summer, I have had it all of 3 times. Every time I considered my options before having any, deciding that it was acceptable due to the circumstances (things like there were no other drinks available). It might seem then like it was no big deal if I slipped up and had one this week as well. But it is my friend. Oh, how it is.

Let’s start by explaining why I was craving it so much. I was traveling for work last week, and we were out in a classically HOT state. Of course these days which states haven’t been feeling the heat… but where we were it was about 108 degrees or hotter every day. Which meant that obviously, I would prefer to drink something cold. Drinks were provided, but the options were limited. It was coke products, tea, or coffee.

I was drinking tea, because I needed the caffeine. We were quite busy running amuck all week, and I was tired. Plus I don’t sleep well when I know I need to wake up early, I don’t sleep well when someone is in the room with me (I secretly fear someday assaulting someone in my sleep), and both of those circumstances applied to the whole week.

So while I was drinking tea, I really wanted to drink something cold. Typically when I want a cold caffeinated beverage these days I turn to iced tea. Well, they had none. Ok, I’m flexible, next option would be a Mountain Dew. As I said, they were serving COKE products. No Mountain Dew available. I mean I drink Sprite sometimes, but not when I need my caffeine fix! There was allegedly a coffee cart somewhere selling iced coffee, which would be acceptable, but note the word “selling” as opposed to the free drink options. I’m a bit of a Scrooge. I find it almost impossible to convince myself to buy things when I have a free option, so this really wasn’t an option at all.

Which meant I was stuck with hot tea all week.

This probably wouldn’t have been so bad, but I swear every person that walked up to me was drinking a diet coke. Sometimes they would pour it into a glass of ice in front of me. Oh, how the sight of the glorious dark liquid swirling around those ice cubes stirred my blood. Sometimes they would actually open the can right in front of me. Little known fact: on a job interview they once asked me for my favorite sound in the world. I said the “pop” sound of a pepsi can being opened. You can guess then the effect when everyone is opening their cans around me.

I struggled on. Granted, I complained about it a lot to others. They mostly ignored me. It’s not easy when no one takes your addiction seriously.

I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been pepsi products available. Except then I would have had mountain dew. And even if I didn’t, my resolve would have been stronger.

That sounds odd, doesn’t it? My resolve would have been stronger for the drink I PREFER. Well honestly of those 3 times I’ve had diet pop since last June, only 1 was diet pepsi. And that was actually caffeine free diet pepsi. The other times I had coke, because frankly I don’t think it’s as good, so I didn’t think there was as much of an opportunity for me to go crazy and suck up every sip of diet coke on the premises.

Which means that last week I was constantly justifying it to myself. “Oh, it’s just diet coke. No big deal. I don’t want it as much, so I’ll be able to stop.” “Everyone else is drinking it and they’re fine, surely I can just have one.” “Who cares if I have a diet coke, it’s not hurting anybody…”

And this my friends, is why I held onto that mental wagon and did not end up having a single diet coke (or regular coke, or coke of any form) last week. Because listening to myself, I still sound like an addict. Because I know while having just one really isn’t a big deal, for me, it’s very possible that it will be a gateway to having one next week, then the week after, then next thing you know I’m back to 10 a day or worse.

Btw, addictions suck. Even the ones to "harmless" things like pop.

The Evolution of Drinking

Tomorrow is National Iced Tea Day! I just made a fresh batch of iced tea to celebrate. I’m already drinking some, but it’s not really super cold yet. It’ll be better tomorrow.

If you told me 10 years ago I’d love iced tea in the future, I would have laughed in your face. If you remained serious, I probably would have taken you for a psych evaluation. I’d find it easier to believe you telling me that I would be the mother of the humankind’s last hope than that I’d grow to love iced tea. A friend tried to get me to drink tea when I was like 11, and the only way I drank it was with almost the same amount of sugar as tea. Seriously, the sugar couldn’t even dissolve.

Sure, tastes can change, but if you plotted out my taste in drinks over the years on a graph, it’d be a very gradual curve for about 20 years of my life. Adding tea as a plot point would create such a huge spike that if it was on a seismograph, all the scientists of the world would freak out and announce the end of life as we know it.

It’s very easy to track the evolution of my taste in drinks, because as I said, the change was minimal for the majority of my life.

This, of course, is only if you exclude when I was a baby. My mother alleges that as a baby/toddler I was quite normal and drank milk, ate fruits, and all sorts of things that I’m just not sure I believe. There is absolutely no evidence to back her up.

Now starting with my memories, which are clearly more reliable, you have only one main drink when I was young. That was water. Milk disgusted me. It still does. Chocolate milk was okay, but it started to wear out its welcome as that was about the only thing I drank, since my mother was willing to accept it as a healthy alternative. I wasn’t really big on juice. Certain juices were acceptable, but I had very particular tastes.

I’m not sure at what age this started, but eventually I started to love diet coke/pepsi. My parents drank tons of it, and what probably started as small sips morphed into a lifetime love.

We traveled a lot when I was young, and I always caused the old ladies sitting with me on planes to cackle when I ordered a diet pop (because I almost always was the family member abandoned to sit with strangers. 4 people have to split up when airplane seats are ordered in 3s. In retrospect this was probably a wise decision by my parents. I simply can’t imagine strangers putting up with my brother for hours, and having always been an independent sort they knew I didn’t really care). “Are you on a diet, dearie??” They’d ask almost every time. I’d pout, because that’s like my main response to life, and all offended say “no!!! I just like it better!” Which was true. But granted, it’s probably a little weird when the 8 year old in pigtails and Winnie the Pooh overalls is ordering a diet pepsi.

This continued for years. My mother generally didn’t keep pop in the house (probably fearing I’d find it and drink it all. We had other problems in our house with things like icecream and cookie dough mysteriously disappearing) but my father really liked to eat out, and I was allowed to order it when we were out.

This might have continued indefinitely actually, but 2 big events happened that changed my drinking habits.

The first was that I went and stayed with my aunt for a week or two. I didn’t see much of my aunts and uncles because we didn’t live in the same area, but somehow it got arranged that I could go stay with my aunt in one of those Carolina states. I had a lovely time. I was a pre-teen, and my cousin was an older, super cool teenager, so I soaked up tons of teen-life wisdom. I also switched to regular pepsi, as that was the drink of choice in their house. So again, while it was a change, it was a small change.

It was only a few years though until I switched back to diet pepsi instead. This was mainly because I was now allowed to have pop at home, and the sheer amount I drank a day made me start to consider the calories involved, so having discovered I still enjoyed diet pepsi just as much, I switched back. The big difference then was my preference for pepsi over coke. As a kid, while I drank both I was more of a coke fan. As a teenager, I could drink coke if nothing else was available, but by god if my mother tried to convince me to buy coke just because it was on sale, we had some problems.

Because I <3 pepsi

If you know me at all, you might happen to know that at this point, I can admit I was actually addicted to diet pepsi. No one really considers this a real thing, but then again most people don’t drink it the same way I did. I drank NOTHING else. Water, occasionally, but that’s it. The worst years were early college, where I can say without exaggerating that I was drinking about 10 cans/glasses of diet pepsi a day.

So how did I end up drinking iced tea? Well, it’s mainly because of the 2^nd big event – a routine visit to the dentist. After the dentist became convinced I was bulimic because the diet pepsi was rotting away all of my tooth enamel, I started to cut down.

You have no idea how hard this was. I initially cut down to 4 a day, and I got myself some stickers so I could track my progress on the calendar. If I drank more than 4 I got a red star, which was bad. 4 was a blue star, 3 silver, and 1 or 2 a gold star. There weren’t many gold stars involved. After a few months I cut down to 3, and this was so hard that I decided I’d allow myself to stick to 3 with no further cutting back.

Sometimes the future looked a little bleak to me. When you’re 22, it’s miserable to imagine years spent constantly monitoring pepsi limits. But I didn’t have the strength to quit completely until last summer, after I went on a cruise with friends and

A.     They pestered me about it the whole time (apparently most people think my diet pepsi habits are unhealthy)

B.     I had less available (because apparently the cruise ship didn’t think people drank pop at 8 in the morning, so they wouldn’t provide it until afternoon)

C.     I realized that while it wasn’t pleasant, I could in fact survive without drinking it.

So I switched to tea, because while I was willing to give up pepsi I sure as sugar wasn’t willing to give up caffeine. A few months later I discovered that I even liked iced tea. And the good news is that even when I do things like buy a rt 44 size of iced tea from Sonic, I know that it’s still waaaaaaay better for me than the same thing with diet pepsi.